


That Old Devil Moon In Your Eyes

by Lokei



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ghosts, Humor, Language Barrier, Language of Flowers, M/M, Pheromones, Púca | Pooka, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 22:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wants to survive Chemistry class, and Derek just wants to eat his dinner in peace. A 'helpful' spirit thinks it can do better than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Old Devil Moon In Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from and allusions to the cracktastic musical, _Finian's Rainbow._

(((((())))))

The phone rings while Derek's at the stove, and he gives his pan-seared pork chops smothered in onions a despairing glance. That particular ringtone means one of two things: inane conversation or an emergency, and either is likely to delay his dinner noticeably.

"What is it, Stiles?"

"It" is a pooka that's latched onto the idea of helping Stiles, and Derek listens with reluctant amusement to Stiles' increasingly riled description of how *very not helpful* this particular form of supernatural assistance is in the middle of Harris's chemistry class, especially since the pooka can only be seen by those with a certain supernatural sensitivity. Harris is, as Stiles says, "as mundane as a rock, and not even a cool one like magnetite."

Derek takes care not to let his smile into his voice.

"And you aren't asking Scott for help on this, why?"

"He came over and *played ping-pong with it.*" Stiles says viciously.

Derek can't keep it in anymore, and he laughs loudly. His uncle could not have picked a less effective beta to support his murderous-rage-revenge plan if he'd tried. He was still convinced the mountain ash pills for Gerard were Deaton's idea, after all, even if he couldn't yet reconcile Scott's words of fealty with his secretive actions.

"He's lucky my dad didn't come home unexpectedly and see him losing at table tennis to thin air," Stiles' words start out angry and shift to fond by the end--but then, that seems to be the pattern with those two.

"And you think I can do something to get rid of your questionably helpful Irish poltergeist?" Derek shakes his head and takes his pork chops off the stove before they go past 'cooked' to 'cardboard.' "How did you end up haunted by an Irish ghost anyway?"

Stiles makes some disgruntled noises about an aunt, a vacation, and an ill-considered souvenir of a stuffed cable-knit sheep that he'd made the mistake of getting wet, and suddenly, 'Poof! Pooka!'

"You know, if I hadn't knocked over that water glass onto it, I was planning on giving it to you," Stiles adds, and Derek's eyebrows go up.

"What."

"Well, you know, wolf, sheep, figured you and the puppies could play catch with it or something," Stiles says with a grin that is audible over the phone.

That really doesn't even deserve a response. Derek drops his plate to the table and his head into his hands. "Stiles, I'm about to eat dinner, is there a reason you're calling me about this *right now?*"

"There is, actually." Stiles voice goes muffled for a second and then comes back. "I was on my way over to Deaton's to see if he had any suggestions on pooka-proofing the house, and the thing decides to come ride along and freakin' Jurassic Parks me, man."

" _Jurassic Park_ is not a verb," Derek says with what he considers admirable patience.

"He put my Jeep in a tree!" Stiles exclaims. "With me in it!"

Derek drops his knife. "You couldn't have _led with that_?" Why is it that conversations with Stiles always involve so many italics and exclamation points, anyway?

Derek hears the rustle of Stiles's shrug through the speaker. "I always feel context is important."

"Then you can sit there until I've finished dinner, and then I'll come rescue you," Derek sighs.

"Wish I could, dude, but I don't think the pooka was all that hot at physics when he was alive," Stiles' voice is strained. "Don't know if you can hear the creaking from where you are, but I'm pretty sure this branch isn't gonna hold both me and my blue beauty for that much longer."

"I'll be right there." Derek shoves his chair back and heads for the door. "Which road are you on?"

It doesn't take all that long for Derek to get there--he'd have picked a loft further from Deaton's if he'd had the choice, but with the number of times he or his pack have needed the vet's services, utility trumped the need for privacy and geographically assisted mental distance.

Stiles wasn't wrong about the branch: from underneath, Derek can see the signs of strain and hear them even more clearly. Stiles sticks his head out the window. "Get out from directly under me, man! Do you have, like, no sense of self-preservation at all?"

Derek takes a few steps back and meets Stiles' gaze. "So what, exactly, was it you were hoping I could do in this situation?"

Stiles looks down at Derek, and then at something in the car. Derek hears something squeaky and fast, but it is overwhelmed by Stiles' resigned 'you've got to be kidding me,' before he can parse it. Stiles sticks his head back out the window.

"If I jump out, can you catch me?"

"Only if you don't dislodge the car onto my head," Derek answers warily, and Stiles looks wounded.

"Who just told you not to stand directly under it?" He sighs. "Apparently my 'companion' over here says he'll keep the car aloft if you agree to catch me. Or I agree to jump, comes to the same thing."

Derek privately thinks that they are not, in fact, the same thing. "Do you trust him?" he calls.

"Not as much as I trust you."

"Then jump already!"

Stiles opens the door with a caution that is physically painful to watch, and then swings his legs out, clearly intending to slide as much as possible to reduce the force of his launching. Derek's about to call a warning not to hit his head when Stiles is falling, falling, flailing and Derek's arms are around him almost without conscious thought.

"Nice catch, man," Stiles grins into his face from far too close and Derek's arms open, letting his burden hit the ground, fortunately feet-first.

"You're welcome." Derek avoids Stiles' expression in favor of looking fixedly up in the tree. Something that looks kind of like Bottom from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ but chitters like a chipmunk peers down at them both from Stiles' vacated driver's side door, then slams it shut and the Jeep blinks out of view.

"Hey!" Stiles yelps. "Where'd it take my Jeep?"

Derek finally turns to look at Stiles, relieved that indignation had taken over the uncomfortably sincere gratitude from earlier. "Maybe it's on the road over there? Or maybe he took it back to your house?"

Stiles jogs around the corner of the road and shakes his head. "Nada. Little trickster has to have taken it somewhere." His shoulders sag. "Home's a good guess. Suppose I should start walking."

Derek sighs. "Walk back with me, I'll give you a lift, see if we can't find it."

Stiles turns that surprised/grateful face on him again and Derek starts walking away, pretending not to hear Stiles muttering about wolves who run so fast they don't need cars on rescue missions. He considers pointing out that there was every possibility the pooka could have 'Jurassic Parked' the Camaro as well, but decides that Stiles is venting tension the way he always does, and that sort of verbalization pretty much never needs a response. It took him a while to figure that out--and some of his betas probably never will, given how much Erica likes to bait him and Isaac follows her lead-- but life with Stiles is considerably easier if you pay more attention to his tone than to the words he fountains.

The Jeep is not at Derek's apartment, but fortunately his Camaro still is, so they make a circuit of the likely places in town: Deaton's, the school, the grocery store, the station, before conceding defeat and heading for Stiles' house, hoping that the Jeep isn't in Krakow or something.

"Krakow? Really?" Derek breaks his own 'do not engage' rule over that one. "It's an Irish ghost. You don't think it's more likely in Connemara?"

Stiles' mouth twitches. "Or Glocca Morra?

Derek stares at Stiles, whose grin gets even wider the longer Derek stares.

"Man, I just got this image of Derek-leprechaun that--well, it's more cold steel than Tommy Steele, but--makes me wish I was, like, telepathic so I could share it with you."

Derek scowls. "We're all glad you're not telepathic, Stiles." Much as it might occasionally be helpful to figure out how Stiles' brain works--the kid is so all over the place that even his scent and his heartbeat aren't much help most of the time. Fortunately, Derek is saved from further description of what is a no doubt seriously embarrassing mental picture by Stiles' exclamations of glee and devotion as they turn the corner.

"My baby!" Stiles is out of the car as soon as Derek pulls to a stop, dropping noisy dramatic kisses on the Jeep's frame that make Derek pity whoever ends up on the receiving end of a technique like that.

And then he realizes he's thinking about Stiles' kissing technique, and he pulls away in a squeal of protesting tires and doesn't even bother to wave goodbye.

(((((())))))

Two days later, Derek is sitting down to enjoy his best approximation of his mother's cheesy chicken and rice casserole--it smells almost exactly like he remembers it should, so that's promising--his phone rings again. Derek lets his head thunk to the table but reaches for the damn ringing thing anyway, and once it's in his hand he might as well answer it.

"Stiles."

"So, about that pooka that seems to think it isn't done helping me yet?"

"What about it?"

"It, um, blew up my experiment in chem lab this afternoon and made me get like, the whopper of all detentions for tomorrow, which is gonna royally suck, but it seems like the explosion did something really weird where, like, people are following me around."

"Following you around?" Derek echoes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I can't leave the locker room without people getting all up in my personal space--like, in a clothes-threatening, bad touch kind of way--and it's really creeping me out."

"But they don't come into the locker room?"

"No, I think it might be some kind of smell thing, like all the sweaty feet smell negates the effect or something."

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's dinner time, Stiles, have you been hiding in the locker room _all day_?" And there go the emphases again.

"Uh, yeah. There are still kind of a bunch of people at the door, Derek, I don't know what to do."

"Is anyone at the door out towards the fields?"

There's the sound of Stiles walking and a thunk as he puts his head up to the outer door. "I don't think so. Maybe 'cause I haven't been out that way at all?  So, like, no scent trail, or something?  Though it's, like, kind of disappointing that everyone I go to school with is too stupid to remember there's another door to the locker room."

Derek resigns himself to putting his dinner plate in the fridge again. "We'll blame it on the side effects of whatever the pooka's done to you, if it's that upsetting."  Derek refrains from pointing out that Stiles could have left by that door at any time, because then he'll probably get treated to a treatise on the virtue-saving virtues of hanging out where it smells like teenagers' feet. And even his brain is sounding like Stiles right now, so this situation needs to be resolved immediately.

"I'll drive by and pick you up. Be ready at the door and come running when I call you, okay?"

 Stiles snorts. "Don't I always, man? Think of this as, like, karmic balance for all the bleeding you've done in my car. Which still smells like blood when it sits in the sun too long, so thanks for that."

 Derek decides he is not going to think about his Camaro smelling like hopped-up Stiles pheromones. He's not. He considers taking the dilapidated pickup that his betas share, and realizes pretty fast that that's an even worse idea.

 He underestimates the pungency possible when Stiles comes barreling in, though, and it takes all the power of his full-moon level concentration to keep the windows safely closed so they don't end up with a parade following them.

 "Did you seriously piss off this pooka, or what?" he manages, trying to ignore the fact that breathing through his mouth only does not help at all. Because now he's tasting Stiles on his soft palette and he's definitely only salivating because of hunger for the cheesy chicken waiting for him at home, dammit.

 Stiles sighs and Derek wonders if he can hold his breath all the way to Stiles' house. "Or what, man, I don't know. He has this squeaky little laugh and keeps saying he has a plan, but he disappears every time I try to ask him what the hell he's talking about."

 Derek takes a lot of pleasure in making Stiles stand under the garden hose spray with the carwash soap attachment before sending him into his house, de-perfumed and shivering. There's annoyed sounding squeaking from Stiles' bedroom but Derek cannot bring himself to stick around and find out what the supernatural nuisance is saying, because now there's a cavalcade of small domesticated and urban wildlife molesting his Camaro where Stiles left the door ajar and Derek really really hates his life.

 ((((((())))))

 "Chemistry is my favorite class and I never want this pooka to leave."

 Derek chokes on his spaghetti.  "What?"

 "I was just calling to say I don't need your help anymore."

 There is something decidedly weird in Stiles' voice, like a note of desperation that jives oddly with his actual words.

 "Stiles, you're not making much sense."

 "I don't know what you're talking about."  There it is again--that hitch in Stiles' voice, like he wants to be saying something else instead.

 "Why did you call me?"  Derek tries again.

 "Because I--" there's a long silence as Stiles breathes heavily, and then makes a kind of agonized sound that bleeds into the rest of his sentence.  "--I don't need you."

 Derek frowns.  He and Stiles haven't exactly had the world's most cordial relationship, but he's had enough conversations with the guy that he knows calling people up to tell them he doesn't need them is not really Stiles' style.  As it were.

 If he's being coerced in some way, though...

 Derek's heart beats faster and he has visions of Stiles at the hands of unscrupulous hunters or hostile supernatural beings.  "Stiles, are you in trouble?"

 Another long pause, then: "No."

 Which is what Stiles would probably say if he was in trouble.  Derek is already heading for the door. 

 "Can you tell me where you are?"

 "I don't want to," Stiles answers.  "But I can."

 Derek nearly pulls the phone away to look at it.  "You're back to making no sense," he warns.  "Is someone listening?  Can you not talk freely?"

 Stiles makes another agonized, aggravated sound.  "You won't find me at Makeout Point," he mutters.  That's his term for the area in the woods where Scott and Allison had their rendezvous when they weren't supposed to be seeing each other, and it's turned into a regrouping spot for the pack when for one reason or another more inhabited areas won't work. 

 Stiles wouldn't bring anyone threatening there, so maybe he's being overheard but not physically threatened at the moment?  It's Derek's best guess, but none of this is making any sense.  Derek figures he'd better check there first before hitting the other likely spots, just in case Stiles is using some kind of code.

 He moves fast, the way only an alpha can, and when he pulls up a safe distance from the overlook, he only smells Stiles and that strange copper and peat overtone that Stiles has been wearing in the last week since being afflicted with a pooka.  He approaches carefully.

 "Derek!" Stiles looks happy to see him, and maybe relieved?  "I didn't think you'd figure it out."

 Derek is used to his intelligence being insulted, but less and less often by Stiles, and it stings.  He scowls.  "Well, I did, so are you going to tell me what's going on already?"

 Stiles clamps his lips shut and raises a finger.  He points to his mouth, then squats down to scratch a kind of wonky sideways H with a crooked crossbar into the ground, then points to his head, and looks expectantly at Derek.  Derek feels his forehead wrinkle. 

 "What?"

 Stiles rolls his eyes.  He squats down again and writes an equation in the dirt. 

 1+1=2

 "I'm aware of basic arithmetic, Stiles, what are you getting at?"

 1+1 =/= 3  Stiles writes.  He circles the 'does not equal' sign and points again at his mouth and head.

 "Your mouth does not equal your brain?"  Derek shakes his head.  "I think we all know your filter needs work from time to time, Stiles, but if you're trying to apologize for something, or whatever this is, you're not doing a really great job of it."

 Stiles sighs and flops dramatically on to the ground, obscuring his scratchings.

 "I knew this was a great idea," he says in a despairing tone.  "I could have called someone else."

 Derek sits down next to him despite his impulse to just leave Stiles to whatever funk he's in.  "No, you couldn't," he disagrees.  "After all, it's me you've called every other time."

 Stiles sits bolt upright and starts nodding emphatically, flailing his hands and grinning, pointing from his head to Derek over and over.

 Derek's eyes widen.  "Wait--that's what you were trying to say.  But it came out opposite?"

 Stiles grabs for Derek's hand and shakes it up and down, still grinning.

 "So everything you say is the opposite of what you mean," Derek clarifies.

 "You're an idiot!" Stiles crows.  Derek shakes his head and chuckles a little.

 "So are you, and I actually mean it."

 Stiles sticks his tongue out at Derek.  "You can be so charming," he mutters, and then blushes, which--Derek's not going to pick that apart, because Stiles makes little sense on a good day, and this is clearly not one of those, even if Derek has figured out the code.  Or curse, or whatever.

 "Another gift from the pooka?"

 A nod.

 "But not one we can just hose off this time." 

 A headshake.  "I didn't try that."  Meaning, of course, that he did. 

 "And you've been researching this thing the whole time it's been hanging around."

 Stiles gave him an eloquent look that managed to convey "of course," with the kind of pithiness usually restricted to Derek's own facial expressions.

 "So can you be writing or typing any of this, or is that affected too?"

 Stiles tips his head back and forth and then glares at Derek, who realizes that either/or questions are more difficult for him to answer without things getting garbled.  "Some writing works?"  He guesses.  "Gestures do.  Could you use one of those boards they have for people who are mute or paralyzed?"

 Stiles flops dramatically to the ground and Derek shrugs.  "What?  I'm just trying to come up with the sorts of things you usually do.  In fact, why haven't you?"

 Stiles rolls over and pulls a small book from his rear pocket, waving it at Derek in mute illustration.  Derek grabs his wrist to still the waving cover so he can actually read it, and ignores the way Stiles' pulse feels under his grip.  It's got a very Victorian cover, with watercolor illustrations of vines and flowers around the title and a butterfly in the corner.

 " _The Language and Sentiment of Flowers_?  Really, Stiles?"  Derek has to laugh.  "Of all the possible alternatives you could have come up with, Victorian flower language was your first choice?"

 "It wasn't the closest choice," Stiles grumbles, face nearly mashed into his drawn-up knees.  He opens the cover slowly to the flyleaf and stares at Derek, daring him to react as he takes in the bookplate inscription.

  _From the Library of Alethea Barr Stilinski_

 Oh.  Derek meets Stiles' eyes and nods, hoping the way he understands shows through.  He can't always trust his own expressions, but Stiles relaxes and lets Derek shift his grip so that he's sharing the miniscule weight of the slim volume.

 Stiles' mouth quirks upward and he thumbs the book open to the A's, laughing a little as he points to the entry for "Aconite (Wolfsbane) - Misanthropy," and Derek rolls his eyes.

 "Gee, thanks," he mutters, pointing further up the page at "Abecedary - Volubility" and gesturing pointedly at Stiles, who makes a 'not right now,' face at him.

 "So do you have any ideas how to fix this?" Derek asks.

 Stiles points up the page to "Abatina - Fickleness" and shrugs, then points to his watch and shrugs again.

 "You think the pooka will get bored and let it wear off?"

 Stiles flicks the page over to "Almond (Flowering) - Hope."  Derek sighs. 

 "Any other ideas?"

 Stiles frowns and thumbs forward a number of pages, pointing to "Calla Lily - Magnificent Beauty" and then at Derek.

 "What?"

 Stiles does a double take at his own finger, rolls his eyes and shifts it up minutely on the page to point to "Calceolaria - I offer you pecuniary assistance."

 Derek blows out a long breath.  That is...a more logical thing for Stiles to be attempting to say in this situation.  "You want me to bribe the pooka."

 Stiles raises his eyebrows in a hopeful head bobble, and his finger slides down to "Canterbury Bell - Gratitude." 

 Derek settles back against the boulder nearby and pulls Stiles over to sit against his side.  "Let's wait a bit and see if it wears off before I go around trying to figure out what's going to buy off a ghost with a mission to make your life complicated."

 Stiles nods and settles against him, flipping forward once more to "Coronella - Success crown your wishes," and Derek snickers.  Those Victorians were flowery in language, with or without botanical accompaniment.

 Derek considers suggesting a game of 'Yes or No,' or Twenty Questions, since anything more complicated is almost not worth the effort to pass the time, and it would be an entertaining look into Stiles' history and thought processes--but then, it wouldn't be all that fair, either, since it would be hard for Stiles to ask questions back, and Derek wouldn't know where to start just telling Stiles stuff to try to make it even.  He depends on Stiles' voice to prompt and unravel his own words.

On the other hand, it would be a good way to figure out when and if the curse wears off.  Maybe he'll suggest it in a little while.  Stiles seems content to sit with him just as they are, and Derek doesn't mind.

 ((((())))))

 The doorbell rings exactly eighteen hours after Derek and Stiles had given up on out-waiting the curse and Derek drove a shivering, grumpy Stiles back to his house for the third time in a week.  Stiles, naturally, is the one in his hallway, but he's got a half-smile on and greenery in his grasp, held out in Derek's direction.

"You brought me flowers."

Stiles looks at the bouquet in his hands and then back at Derek and attempts to hand them over again. "Yep."

"Why did you bring me flowers? Are you still talking in opposites?"

Stiles rolls his eyes and shoves them at Derek's chest, at which point he actually takes them. "They're 'I'm sorry I keep ruining your dinner' flowers."

Derek blinks down at the bouquet and then raises his eyebrows as he looks back at Stiles. "I think the usual apology for a ruined dinner is offering to take the other person out to eat."

Stiles freezes. His mouth falls open and shuts again at a glacial pace and he blinks three times before he manages to say anything.

"You--would let me take you out for dinner?" There's a glimmer of something Derek wasn't expecting in Stiles' expression and he finds that he's not at all averse to seeing more of it.

He smiles, a slow spreading grin that makes Stiles' breath stop again. "I would."

From the Jeep at the curb comes a high-pitched, Gaelic cheer and a kind of 'poof of smoke' special effects sound: the pooka problem appears to be solved. Derek grins a bit more. About time. Speaking of which....

"Stiles, just ask, already, before your ghostly assistant comes back to help you with that too."

Stiles' mouth opens and closes once more without actually managing to produce sounds, and then he throws his hands in the air, with a very Stiles 'oh, screw it,' and he launches himself at Derek, mouth first.

The flowers get pretty mangled, and Derek is going to smell of fern and mulberry and honeysuckle and celandine for the rest of the day.

 Not to mention the fact that Derek's perfectly good beef stew is sitting there cooling on the kitchen counter, ignored.

  For once, he really doesn't care.


End file.
